Owner Closes Brewery

Essay Contestants Worried

October 19, 1995|By WARREN RICHEY Staff Writer

The owner of Fort Lauderdale's financially troubled Riverwalk Brewery attracted national attention in June when he announced that whoever wrote the best essay about owning a bar and grill would win his beer emporium.

Now owner Chris Stasinos is attracting a different kind of attention.

Stasinos, 31, abruptly closed the microbrewery on Southwest Second Avenue Tuesday morning, leaving about 50 employees out of work and prompting concerns among some essay contestants who said they fear they may have been duped out of their $100 contest entry fees.

The winner of the contest was to be announced Oct. 22.

Signs on the door at the microbrewery advised entrants to call a telephone number and leave a name, address and phone number. But the listed phone number was not working on Wednesday.

Stasinos, who lives in Delray Beach, and his lawyers could not be reached for comment, despite repeated messages left throughout the day.

Stasinos, who has owned the microbrewery for less than two years, was quoted recently as saying that all contest money will be returned to the entrants.

He also said that business had fallen, that he was losing about $1,000 a day and that bills were mounting too quickly.

Among those bills was a delinquent county tax bill for $92,327.

On Wednesday, tax collectors taped public notices on the front door and windows of the Riverwalk Brewery announcing the unpaid tax bill.

Jan Leland of the Broward Revenue Collection Division said the notices mean that no equipment or furnishings may be taken from the restaurant, bar and brewery until after the county tax has been paid.

If the taxes aren't paid, Leland said, the county would seize and auction enough of the equipment to satisfy all back taxes. She said the tax bill for 1995 will be sent next month.

It remains unclear how many people entered the Riverwalk Brewery essay contest. But there were signs that Stasinos was less than pleased with the number of entrants.

Stacey Norcross, a waitress, said that two weeks ago Stasinos told staff members that the contest had reached his goal of attracting 5,000 entrants. With a $100 entry fee, that would be $500,000 that Stasinos could use to pay off old debts before turning over the business to a new owner.

But Norcross said at the same time there was a rumor among staff members that the contest had drawn only 95 entries.

Wally Brewer, proprietor of the neighboring Olde Towne Chop House, said he saw Stasinos regularly in recent months and got the impression the contest was not bringing in the kind of money Stasinos had anticipated.

"What happened with the contest? I have no idea," Brewer said.

Riverwalk Brewery employees were equally in the dark about what happened to their jobs.

"I was just in shock. I haven't gotten to talk to Chris since [the business closed)," said Phil Falzarano, assistant manager. "I had no idea that anything was going to happen like that."

Norcross said there were signs that the restaurant was on its last legs, but no one took them seriously.

"We were running out of everything on Sunday. We ran out of place mats. We ran out of beverage napkins. We were even running out of liquor. But at the same time we were still brewing beer," Norcross said.

She said the paychecks of several employees had bounced, and that in recent weeks Stasinos personally cashed employee paychecks, handing them cash in envelopes with pay stubs.